Corporate Initiative Programs - A Coordination Theory Perspective

This research project centers on the phenomenon of corporate initiative programs (CIP). As temporary organizational structures, corporate initiative programs orchestrate multiple distinct, but interdependent, strategic initiatives that multi-unit firms utilize to transform their current operations and to develop new businesses. Building on a coordination theory perspective, this research projects aims at introducing the program level as a new level of analysis in research on strategic initiatives, and thereby making substantial theoretical and empirical contributions.
Research on strategy process and implementation has thus far focused on the initiative level. Recently, a few studies on acquisitions and alliances have begun to shift attention from individual strategic initiatives to the program level. As these studies largely focus on specific corporate topics, little is known about the bundling of multiple corporate initiatives meant to implement strategy. Research on corporate initiative programs is thus needed from an academic, as well as a managerial point of view. From a theoretical perspective, corporate initiative programs should be separate from the operating business, while simultaneously interacting and coordinating intensely to access corporate resources and overcome inertial forces and rigidities. Nevertheless, the coordination literature pays limited attention to the coordination of undertakings that are temporary in nature and characterized by multiple goals. From a managerial standpoint, corporate initiative programs should produce very distinct managerial challenges. These programs need to resolve conflicts among multiple corporate initiatives with different, potentially conflicting, goals and transform the existing operations to achieve a sustainable impact.